I Really Did Like You
by Enthusiastic Fish
Summary: Oneshot written for the NFA Memories of Kate Challenge. Five people remember Kate. It's centered around Tim, but it's about remembering Kate. Semi-surprising pairing.


**A/N: **This is written for the NFA Memories of Kate Challenge. We had to have five different people relate memories they had of Kate. We could do it any way we wanted, and I chose to do it in a story format. It's centered around Tim (as usual), but it's also about Kate. It's set more or less in the present season and there is a very minor mention of events in season 6. There is a semi-surprising pairing at the end...but this isn't really a romance.

**Disclaimer:** I do not now, nor have I ever, owned NCIS. The story would be going a lot differently if I did. ...and I'd be making money, which I'm not.

* * *

**I Really Did Like You  
**by Enthusiastic Fish

"_Tim, we're NCIS Agents. Any one of us could die on any given day."_

"_No. You were exactly where you were supposed to be."_

"_Don't let him intimidate you, McGee. That's my job, today."_

"_You went to MIT?"_

Tim opened his eyes, the random sentences still sounding in his ears, running backward to the first time he'd met her. Today was the day, and he regretted the fact that he'd remembered. The year before, it had passed by before he'd even realized it. This year, however... he sighed. It didn't matter how many years went by. There were times when remembering that Kate was dead still had the power to make him want to cry. He had an additional pain to bear, one that he couldn't yet reveal.

He wondered if anyone else would remember that today was the fourth anniversary of Kate's death.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

The activity in the bullpen was muted when Tim arrived and he knew.

_They remembered._

He walked to his desk and set his bag down, trying not to make eye contact with anyone else. There was a report he needed to finish from yesterday. He brought it up and began to work on it. Then, a shadow loomed over him. He looked up.

"I'm almost done, Boss," he said.

"Good." Gibbs stared at him for just long enough that Tim knew what he wasn't asking.

"I'm okay." Feeling daring, he added, "Are you?"

Gibbs nodded curtly and walked back to his own desk. The morning proceeded with Kate not being mentioned by anyone...and so obviously _not _mentioned that they might as well have been shouting her name. Ironically, it was Ziva who brought her up. It was lunchtime and they were eating at their desks. Gibbs was elsewhere.

"Today is the anniversary of the day Ari shot Kate, is it not?"

Tim choked on his sandwich.

"Yes, it is, Ziva," Tony answered darkly. "Thanks for reminding us."

"You know, you already were remembering it. You might as well get it out now."

"You didn't have to use it as a way of taking poor Probie out. You all right, Probie?"

Tim coughed and nodded. "Fine."

"Would she be happy knowing that you could not even mention her name?"

Tim shook his head. "No. In fact, I'm sure she'd punch Tony in the gut for making her name taboo."

"Yeah," Tony said, smiling faintly. "She didn't let me having the plague stop her from doing that. I'm sure she wouldn't let death stop her either." His smile faded.

"She was physical?"

"Oh, yeah," Tony said, his eyes glinting maliciously. "You should have seen when she took Probie down."

Tim flushed.

"Oh?" Ziva asked, smiling.

"Yeah," Tony said, more than willing to dish on Tim getting walloped. "We were doing some sparring in the gym and while Gibbs and I were...boxing..."

"Yeah, he got you pretty good, too, Tony," Tim muttered.

"Don't interrupt. McGee and Kate were supposed to do some wrestling. Hand-to-hand stuff...only Kate had caught him staring at her and she wasn't happy about being gawked at. So, Kate being Kate, decided to teach him a lesson. She threw him around the gym like a rag doll. Every time I had time to look over, McGee was flying through the air, on his way to another face plant on the mat. He wasn't doing very well because he was still making the mistake of thinking of Kate as a girl. Well, once, only once, he disregarded her gender and managed to pin her. Did pretty good, too, but Kate...being Kate...she didn't like losing, not even to the nicest of her teammates. So, she...endangered his manhood."

Tim winced at the memory.

"That does not sound very nice," Ziva commented.

"It wasn't," Tim said.

"McGee wasn't walking right the entire day," Tony said gleefully.

"Yeah, Tony, you weren't so happy when she elbowed you in the gut the day I joined the team."

"This was a common occurrence?" Ziva asked, smiling.

"Oh, yeah. Tony got on her nerves a lot. Sometimes, she'd take it, but most of the time she'd retaliate...with varying levels of vindictiveness," Tim said smiling at Tony's sudden interest in his computer. "Actually, what I liked best was not how she continually beat on Tony." He grinned.

"What was it, then?"

Tim's grinned more widely in recollection. "It was her weapon of choice. She loved the shotgun."

"Agent Todd?" Ziva asked in surprise.

"Oh yeah," Tony confirmed. "I think it because she–"

Tim interrupted quickly. "I remember once, before I joined the team, we were on protective duty, guarding the son of an escaped convict...who turned out to be innocent, but at the time we didn't know that. She was inside and I was out in the car."

"If you were not a part of the team, why were you there?"

"I was..."

"Probie was insinuating himself onto the team."

"They needed an extra hand and I was available," Tim corrected, blushing. "She was inside, and he showed up there like we thought, but he took Kate by surprise, tied her up in the house. I was outside, but when she didn't answer on the radio, I went in to check. Found her and untied her. She was furious and ran outside. We made him think we'd found his car already; so he commandeered another car. Kate grabbed the shotgun from the trunk and shot at him as he flew past."

"Did she hit him?"

"Oh, yeah," Tim said, nodding. "It was amazing to see her blow out the windshield."

"But you said he was innocent."

"Well, we didn't know that...and he _had_ just tied her up. He wasn't acting like an innocent man."

"She sounds tough."

"She was," Tony agreed.

"Yeah," Tim said, nodding. _But she was more than that..._

Gibbs came in then, and the look on his face said he was not in the mood to reminisce; work recommenced, but Tim's mind was still on Kate. When he went down to the lab to help Abby with some work, he found Abby sitting, staring at the picture Kate had drawn of her as a bat. She laughed to herself.

"What's so funny?" Tim asked.

"I was just remembering..."

"Kate?" he asked, hesitantly.

"Yeah. It's been four years...but...sometimes, it seems like yesterday."

"Uh-huh. I know. I still miss her," Tim confessed.

"Me, too."

"So...what were you remembering?" he asked, trying to dispel the sadness.

"Oh...well...I'm not sure I should tell you. She'd be embarrassed."

"She's dead," Tim said baldly...and then looked away as Abby stared at him. He focused on the windows until he felt Abby's arms around him.

"I'm sure she wouldn't mind if I told you. We were all friends, right?"

_Friends...yeah._ "Yeah."

"She got a tattoo, did you know that?"

Tim almost nodded, but then stopped himself. "Really? Kate?"

Abby missed the hesitation and she grinned. "Yeah. I talked her into it. We had this case once where it came up...and Tony couldn't stop himself from trying to figure it out. Gibbs said what it was at the end...but he was wrong, and he knew that. He just knew she had one."

"How?"

"He's Gibbs. He's like the Shadow. He always knows."

Tim smiled. "How did you talk her into it?"

"I got her drunk and convinced her that it was a good idea, of course."

"How?"

Abby smiled. "I got _you_ to get a tattoo, didn't I? You hadn't even met me when you got it. Don't doubt my powers of persuasion."

"So...can I ask what and where?" Tim asked.

"Sure."

"So...what and where?"

"Well, there's this tattoo place I know. They're really good for the first-timers. Kate, even drunk, didn't want anything hugely elaborate. She said she wanted a _tasteful_ tattoo...if there was such a thing. Never mind the fact that I'd convinced her to put it in a not-so-tasteful place. She didn't want anything cliche either. She said if she was going to get a tattoo, it would be...different. So...no roses and no butterflies. No hearts or anything. We had so much fun picking it out." Abby smiled wistfully. "I had hoped that I'd be able to convince her to get another one later...but...well, that didn't happen."

"So...what and where?" Tim asked again.

"It was one of those pseudo-tribal tattoos. Just a spiked swirly design. She decided to go with solid black...edged in green. It looked kind of like a tree branch...a very flexible tree branch."

"Where?"

"Oh, didn't I say?" Abby asked, grinning mischievously.

"No, you didn't," Tim answered, content to continue the game.

"I got her to get it on her bum. I think I convinced her by saying that no one would be able to see it that way...except for the people she _wanted_ to let see it."

Tim blushed slightly, but Abby didn't notice.

"What did she say when she sobered up?"

"Oh, she was ready to kill me at first, but I told her to think about how funny it would be to have a tattoo and never let Tony see it. He'd want to, you know, just to say he had. As long as he didn't _actually_ see it, he'd always wonder...and it would drive him crazy."

"I'll be she liked that," Tim said smiling.

"Oh, yeah. And I promised her that the next time we went out somewhere, she'd could pick what we did and I wouldn't complain." Abby laughed and then looked at the picture again and sighed. "I still miss her, Tim."

"Yeah, me, too." He shook off the lingering sadness. "Well, the computer won't type for itself."

"Not yet, anyway. Someday, you and I will be obsolete."

Tim smiled. "Nah, they'll need us to tell the computers what to type."

Abby laughed and they began working, although every so often one of them would pause and glance at the picture drawn by their friend.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

The day was winding down, but not fast enough for Tim. He was finding more and more that he wanted to get away from NCIS and the memories it held...and yet, there was another place that was drawing him in. The same place he'd been afraid to go when Kate had been killed...

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

He opened the door to Autopsy and slowly walked to what he still thought of as "Kate's drawer." Morbid? Yes...but that didn't stop him from thinking it. He touched it, remembering what he'd said to her, knowing that Tony hadn't really understood it.

"Four years, isn't it, Timothy?"

Tim jumped and spun around.

"Oh, sorry, Ducky."

"Don't apologize, lad. I know the date as well as anyone."

Tim looked at the pristine table. "How could you...do it? Cut her open?"

"Because I knew that I'd be able to give her the respect she deserved."

Tim nodded, not really understanding...and he knew Ducky could tell.

"Caitlin came down here herself a few times. You and she both seem attracted to things that cause you pain."

Tim smiled at the accurate assessment.

"I found her here...just one column over from where you are standing, the bottom row."

"When?"

"After the case involving young Ensign Hayes."

"The suicide by cop," Tim said.

"Yes. Poor girl. She was so broken up when she found out that the ensign was innocent and she had killed him. It did not matter that she'd been goaded into doing so. All that mattered was that she had taken a life."

"I remember. You had opera tickets."

Ducky smiled. "Yes. I did. It was hard for her, I know, but she covered admirably when I came down."

"You knew she'd be here?"

"No, but I suspected. Like I said, you two are much the same. She was leaning against the other drawers staring at the tortured young man she'd killed. I knew that she was profiling him in her mind, trying to find something that would allow her a measure of peace. She was also failing miserably, I could see by her face. I knew she would not want much from me, but I wanted to offer something."

"The opera?"

"Yes. The opera. Opera is not filled with happy stories, but she would not be alone, and that was more important. I offered to take her. She was not especially eager, but I persisted."

"How was it?"

"Oh, I don't know. We didn't actually end up going. She got all dressed up, and when I came to her door, she was crying. She was beginning to secondguess herself, her role at NCIS, her abilities. She had made, she felt, more than her fair share of fatal mistakes."

"What did you do?"

Ducky smiled. "I did the one thing that I knew could cure all ills, if anything could." He paused for a long moment...just long enough for Tim to feel uncomfortable before his smile became a grin. "I took her to get ice cream. I, in my tux and she in her dress. We talked and by the end of the night, she had even managed to smile a little. She just needed a friend. ...as did you when you came here to see her."

Tim nodded and looked at the drawer again. "Yeah. If Tony hadn't come down, I probably would have cried."

"Did you ever, Timothy?"

Tim shook his head. "No. No, after I'd said good-bye...there didn't seem to be much point." He swallowed, feeling a familiar lump. "I'd better get back to work." He walked back toward the door.

Ducky caught him by the shoulder. "I hope this is not the only way you remember Caitlin, Timothy."

Tim almost blushed. He held it back, but he smiled. "No, Ducky. I have...more pleasant memories than...than that."

"I'm glad. No one should remember a friend in a state of death."

"Today, I do...but not most of the time."

"If you ever need to talk, Timothy..."

Tim was a little surprised. Did Ducky know? Then, he dismissed the idea. No, Ducky couldn't know. They hadn't ever said a word.

"Thanks, Ducky. I'll remember that." He walked out of Autopsy and back to the bullpen. It was almost empty...and the fourth anniversary of Kate's death was almost over.

Almost.

"McGee, I need your report," Gibbs said, sternly, from his desk. "I was supposed to get it this morning."

Tim gulped. He had completely forgotten.

_I was working on it just this morning. How could I have forgotten to give it to Gibbs?_

"Sorry. Sorry, Boss! I...I have it done. I don't know why I didn't give it to you." He strode quickly to his computer and opened the completed report. He printed it off and handed it to Gibbs. "Here it is!"

Gibbs took it without much comment and Tim took that to mean that he wasn't in trouble.

"Tony and Ziva have already gone. Abby instructed me to force you to join them at the bar when you were finished."

"Thanks, Boss. You coming?"

"I have to read your report," he said drily.

Tim smiled sheepishly and began to gather his things. Then, he paused and looked at Gibbs, seemingly absorbed by Tim's eloquence. ...or something.

"Boss?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you miss her still?"

"Yeah."

Tim nodded and when Gibbs didn't add anything else, he figured that was it. He began to leave.

"She ever tell you about her first experience with NCIS?"

Tim stopped and turned around. He'd been at Ziva's desk...Kate's old desk.

"Not much," he admitted. "I didn't usually even think about her being new to NCIS. She was always there...to me anyway."

Gibbs smiled and Tim sensed there was more coming. He set down his bag and leaned against...Kate's desk. Somehow, in that moment it had become Kate's desk again.

"She was always so confident. That impressed me right when I first met her," Gibbs said. His voice was soft, almost as though he was talking to himself. "Even though she clearly didn't have a clue exactly what was going on, she made authoritative statements, gave orders. She didn't take any of my crap. I could tell she'd been well-trained to be Secret Service. People who aren't confident can't be trusted to protect the President of the United States of America." His smile was ironic. "She was a woman in a field traditionally dominated by men and had to compensate for that. I still remember her saying that she'd earned her jock strap. Kate made you feel like she knew what she was doing, even when she didn't. It was only when she started to trust us that she allowed us to teach her anything...and then, she learned. She was always a bit too eager to prove that she deserved to be working in a man's world...but I can't help thinking that she would have realized she didn't need to do that...if she'd lived a little longer."

The words stopped as suddenly as they'd started and Gibbs looked back at Tim's report. Tim smiled. He'd often wondered exactly what had made Gibbs hire her after she'd quit. There it was...and he hadn't had to ask for it, not that he would have dared.

"Good night, Boss," Tim said and turned back to the elevator, walking past Ziva's desk.

"Good night, McGee."

The elevator arrived and, as Tim stepped on, he heard one last thing.

"I think she'd have been proud of you."

"I hope so," he whispered to himself and then added in a louder voice, "Thanks, Boss."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

It was nearly midnight before he got back to his apartment after spending a few hours at the bar with his friends. Ducky and Jimmy had come and they had made toasts to departed friends. Toasts to Pacchi, Kate, Paula, Jenny, and even a more tentative one to Michelle and Langer. They had all been surprised by Gibbs' sudden appearance around eleven. They didn't drink heavily, but it was a moment of camaraderie that would be cherished, even if not mentioned.

Now, Tim sat down at his computer and thought about the memories that had been shared...and the ones that hadn't been. There were memories he had that belonged to no one else. Perhaps someday he'd feel as though he could share them, but not yet. A sad smile crossed his lips as he thought about that first night. It hadn't been following a harrowing case. It hadn't been a sudden upwelling of unbridled passion. It hadn't been exciting in the usual way...not at all. It had been...so natural, as if everything had been building to that first moment when they had both felt the same way at the same time.

He couldn't remember, now, where Tony had been. If he'd been present, the moment most certainly wouldn't have occurred...but he'd been gone. Tim had picked up his bag and Kate had followed suit. They caught the elevator, rode down together and walked out of NCIS. Then, just as they had been about to go their separate ways, Kate to her car and Tim to the bus stop, they had looked at each other.

_They blushed and Tim looked away...but he didn't keep walking._

"_What do you think, Tim?" Kate asked._

"_Um...about what?"_

_She laughed. "You're glowing like a Christmas tree and you have the guts to ask about what?"_

_Tim's eyes moved back to her. It was like he'd never seen her before this moment. They'd been friends, but ever since he'd recovered from knowing the inevitable fact that he and Abby would never want the same thing, he had found himself drawn to Kate. He'd fooled himself into thinking that it was just as friends, but now..._

"_I...I like the idea," he stammered._

"_Me, too." Kate, ever practical, gestured toward her car and they left NCIS together._

That had been the beginning...the beginning of a relationship that had not been given nearly enough time. Tim hadn't learned enough about her. He hadn't _known_ her well enough for her to die.

_You knew her well enough to imagine her as a dominatrix,_ his mind asserted...and even though he was alone, Tim blushed, remembering that. Part of him wished that she had simply stayed as Trinity. ...and he hated to remember her dead...in the drawer, asking him to come down and see her.

"You never looked like you were asleep," he said, barely noticing that he was speaking aloud. "You looked dead, Kate. You _are_ dead. ...and I miss you."

He'd moved on, of course. He knew that Kate wouldn't have liked the idea of him pining, but she was still gone, and every year, that loss...the potential...it struck him anew. He remembered the walks, the dates, the conversations, the jokes about hiding their relationship from everyone...the nights that were never long enough. ...the fact that he was still alone when he had felt there was a possibility of so much more. A familiar lump rose in his throat, but his eyes stayed dry.

Softly, he repeated the last words he'd ever spoken to her.

"I really did like you, Kate. A lot."

FINIS!


End file.
